We long for perfection. The perfect partner, house, job, boss, and spiritual teacher. And when we find them, we want them to stay that way forever, never to lose the glow, never to grow old, never to have the roof sag, the paint peeling. We’re also taught to seek perfection in ourselves. Novelist Florida Scott-Maxwell writes, “No matter how old a mother is, she looks at her middle-age children for signs of improvement.” You are told that if you do enough therapy, work out at the gym, eat an especially healthy diet, watch documentaries of TV, manage your cholesterol, and meditate enough, you will become more perfect. Forget the tyranny of perfection. The point is not to perfect yourself. It is to perfect your love. Let your imperfections be an invitation to care. Remember that imperfections are deliberately woven into Navajo rugs and treasured in the best Japanese pottery. They are part of the art. What a relief to honor your life as it is, in all its beauty and imperfection.
~Jack Kornfield
we will regret at some moment something……may we not forget our passion along the way…..
inquiry for today~ hear the call of whatever is beating inside the heart……it’s ok to not make sense in the discernment of compassion, passion, and darkness……
Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.
~Rilke